


and in your song most of all she rejoiced

by starraya



Category: Holby City
Genre: F/F, title from sappho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-07 22:59:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15229839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starraya/pseuds/starraya
Summary: Serena puts her hand over her eyes. “It gets worse. Bernie’s also here on the Island.”“The Bernie?” Raf gasps.“Big macho army medic Bernie? Catalyst for your lesbian awakening Bernie?” Fletch takes Serena’s hand away from her eyes. “Best shag of your life Bernie?”“Fletcher!”-Elinor knows that she shouldn’t have read her mother’s diary, but it was the year her mum had carried her. She hoped to find the name of a man. She found three. Bernie. Edward. Robbie. Three potential dads. Elinor invites them all to her wedding.Only when a woman introduces herself as Bernie does Elinor realise that her mother's kept more than one secret.-“How can you write a Mamma Mia Lesbian AU?” I hear you ask. Darlings, you underestimate me.Serena is butch. Your welcome.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There will be five chapters. Also I promise you this fic will read much better if you listen to the Mamma Mia soundtrack whilst reading it. I had it on repeat whilst writing.

Elinor knows that she shouldn’t have read her mother’s diary, but it was the year her mum had carried her, and she couldn’t resist. She hoped to find the name of a man. She found three. Bernie. Edward. Robbie. Three potential dads.

Elinor knows too that she shouldn’t have invited the three men to the island, but a girl needs to know who her father is, right? And she wants her dad to walk her down the aisle. Her wedding is in two days’ time.

Elinor checks her watch. If the men meant what they said in their letters, they are catching the boat to Kalokairi right about now.

-

One hand above her eyes, shielding them from the sun, Serena watches two men step off the boat. They wear matching yellow and pink flowery shirts. She waves a hand.

“Raf! Fletch!”

They race down the pier towards her. Envelope her in a hug.

Raf steps back. “Serena, you look –”

“Say old,” Serena warns him, “and I’ll dropkick you into the ocean.”

“You look like you only have one grown-up kid and sleep all through the night,” Fletch says with no small amount of jealously.

“Kids still running you ragged I see?” Serena says.

“And up the wall,” Fletch says.

“And round the bend,” Raf adds.

“Sounds like you both need a weekend break on the best island in Greece. And,” Serena pauses, her voice drops to a whisper, “sex on the beach.”

Raf and Fletch’s eyes widen.

Serena raises an eyebrow. “Honestly boys,” she turns to the island. “I mean the cocktail.”

“It’s not even midday,” Raf says.

“Details, darling, details.” Serena strides ahead.

“Talking of sex on the beach, is there anyone we should know about?” Fletch says as they trek up to Serena’s hotel. Surely the hill’s gotten steeper over the years? He’s out of breath but Serena doesn’t seem to be breaking a sweat. Sure, she’s  took this route a hundred times, but there’s a certain _bounce_ in her step.

Serena glances back at Fletch. “What?”

“You seem . . . glowy.”

“It’s my daughter's wedding. Why wouldn’t I be _glowy_?”

“I thought you were worried Elinor was rushing into things.”

Serena pivots on the spot, so quickly Fletch nearly walks into her. She presses a finger to his lips and silently glares at him. “Which Elinor does not know and will not know. My only child is making the biggest decision of her life. I am ever so slightly terrified, but . . .”

“You have to let her make her own choices,” Raf suggests.

“Exactly,” Serena agrees, but the fear hasn’t completely left her voice.

“So,” Fletch carries on when Serena drops her finger from his lips, “there is no one new?”

 “My. . . _glow. . ._ ” Serena gestures to herself, “is the freedom and independence of singlehood.”

“Despire the lack of getting any –” Fletch tries to say, before Serena cuts off his last word: sex.

“ _And_ ,” she corrects him, “a really good new vibrator.”

-

“Hi. May I help you?” Elinor asks when she sees three people loitering outside the villa with suitcases at their feet.

“Sure,” a thin, balding man says, “we’re here for the wedding. I’m Edward Campbell.”

“I’m Metcalf. Robbie Metcalf.” Another man holds out his hand for Elinor to shake. As she does, her eyes flit to his right, to a woman tucking a lock of blonde hair behind her ear.

“Bernie Wolfe,” the woman says. “You were expecting us?”

Elinor’s gawps at Bernie. Bernie who is a woman. Bernie who her mum . . . knew . . . well . . . intimately.

It all starts making sense. Her mum never marrying. Her mum never dating any man in the fifteen years since they moved into the hotel. Her mum’s fuck-it attitude to the ‘impossible beauty standards of patriarchy’ and her condemnation of ‘the cage of gender’. She though her mum was just super, super feminist.

Elinor mentally face-palms. Half her mother’s wardrobe is plaid. How did she never see it?”

“You okay?” Bernie’s voice breaks Elinor out of her thoughts.

“I think so.” Elinor looks at Robbie and Edward. She remembers that men also figure in her mother’s past, but her mother has never once mentioned them – or a desire for any man – since. Maybe she wanted to forget them for a reason. Oh, god, her mum’s a lesbian and she’s just invited two of her mum’s ex-lovers onto the island. Maybe it isn’t as bad as thinks, but Elinor knows there’s no way in hell she can take her mum to one side later tonight, feign a casual air and ask: “so, are you a lesbian or bisexual? It’s just you never said.”

Elinor. Is. In. So. Much. Trouble.

“You’re not Serena’s daughter, are you?” Bernie asks Elinor when she spies the resemblance, her brown eyes, the dip in the middle of Elinor’s chin.

“Er, yes.” Elinor gestures to herself.

“Yes, I thought you looked familiar,” Edward says.

“You’re a pretty little thing. Just like your mum,” Robbie adds, and Bernie’s posture stiffens. Serena was not a ‘pretty little thing’. Neither is her daughter. A piece of jewellery is a ‘pretty little thing’. A woman is not.

“Oh, you know,” Elinor answers Robbie, “about . . . the island.”

“Can we see our rooms?” Edward asks. “It’s just I’d like to freshen up before the big reunion.”

Elinor forces a bright smile. “Sure. Come this way.” She turns for the cellars.

-

Yes, Elinor tells Robbie and Edward’s disbelieving faces, the second floor of a creaky shed filled with pieces of dusty, broken furniture, whiffy and discoloured fishing nets and a village of spiders is their room. She apologises profusely, says how all the rooms at the hotel are full because of the wedding and she wasn’t certain they’d all turn up in the first place . . .”

“Don’t worry about it, sweetheart.” Robbie grins. “When can we see Serena?”

Elinor clasps her hands together. “I sent the invites. My mum doesn’t know anything. See, she’s done so much for me, and she’s always talking about you guys and the good old days, and I thought, what an amazing surprise for her that you are all going to be at my wedding.”

Bernie pales. To a deathly white. “I – I – Elinor. I can’t be here. The last time I saw your mother –”

“That was years ago,” Elinor says. “Please, stay. It would mean a lot to me. And you’ve come all this way.

“Yeah,” Robbie chimes in. “Surely, Serena would like to see her old St Winnie’s school chum again?”

Congratulations, Bernie marvels. You know the name of Serena’s boarding school. But that’s about all you know. He hasn’t a clue that she and Serena were lovers.

“When can we break the surprise? That we’re here?” Edward asks.

“Soon.” Elinor pulls at a loose thread on her summer dress. “Just . . . not now. Listen, she can’t know. Not yet. I’ve got to go.” She darts out of the room. Calls behind her. “I’ll be back later.”

-

Bernie leans against a wall. She closes her eyes as if that will block out the sound of Twat One and Twat Two bickering about who gets the one tattered mattress on the floor. They are playing ‘my cock is bigger than yours’.

“I was a detective in the police force, you know. I nearly got shoot once. All those injuries on the job, I deserve a place to rest after my service to – “

“ _I_ served the NHS,” Edward interrupts Robbie, “I have saved countless lives and –”

Bernie starts to tune out. She remembers Serena. Those long days drenched in sunlight. The short, cooler nights. Moments of relief, but never silence. Everything was louder at night. Even the sky seemed to sing. And Serena was the chorus, her moans, her cries, her voice swelling over the sound of their heartbeats, as they made love. As they sweated out the day, as it seeped from their pores, until they felt new and clean and naked in a way that had nothing to do with bared flesh. 

“So, how do you know Serena?” Edward asks Robbie and Serena’s name pulls Bernie out of her memories.

“We go way, way back.” Robbie’s leer is all Bernie needs to know on that topic, and she already knows too much.  After Bernie left, Serena, of course, was free to date anyone. It was her life. Nothing to do with Bernie anymore. But those men? Really?

Bernie crosses her arm. Why did she ever offer Twat One and Twat Two a lift in her boat after they missed the last boat from the mainland? Why?

“I’m going to get some air,” she tells the men.

“Elinor said to stay here,” Edward reminds her.

“My boat,” Bernie improvises. “I forgot – I need to fetch . . . a tampon.”

Bernie delights in the way the men squirm. Smiles to herself as she leaves.

-

As Serena makes her way to the goathouse – her damn car’s playing up again and she needs more tools – she sings quietly to herself.

_Just one look and I can hear a bell ring_

_One more look and I forget everything_

Her singing trails off as she hears sounds from above. _Human_ sounds. She stands on top of a table and pushes up the trapdoor, peers through to the second floor. She sees the side of a man’s body. Edward? Her eyes flick to the right. Robbie?

No.

_No._

They can not be here.

Serena squeezes her eyes shut. This is what happens when you drink at eleven in the morning. She looks again. The men don’t bloody disappear. Edward turns, and Serena startles, drops the trapdoor. She steps back and right off the table.

Someone catches her. Someone stops her from falling to the ground.

“Bernie?” Serena nearly forgets to breathe.

“What? What are you . . .” Serena loses her words as she loses herself in the feel of Bernie’s arms around her, loses herself in Bernie’s eyes, still so beautiful, but lined with creases like her own.

It’s been twenty years since Serena saw those eyes.

“Hi.” Bernie’s voice is quiet and shy. It plunges Serena into an ocean of memories, heady summer nights and broken promises. Serena jolts out of Bernie’s arms, steps backwards.

Bernie’s eyes sweep over Serena, her blue overalls, her cropped, silver hair, the smudge of grease on her left cheek.

“Why are you here?” Serena says, and the smudge of grease moves with her mouth. Bernie imagines closing the distance Serena has set between them and moving forward to gently wipe the mark off of her face.

“I wanted to see you,” Bernie admits. “I missed you.”

Her words stab Serena’s heart. Twenty years of radio silence, twenty years, and Bernie’s not allowed to say things like that. She’s not allowed to look at her _like_ that. She’s not allowed to be here on this island, Serena’s home.

The thud of footsteps from above remind Serena that Bernie isn’t the only one of her exes here.

“I –” Serena’s fingers wrap around the pendant of her necklace, tug on it. “I’m going to arrange for you all to go back to the mainland.”

“I have a boat,” Bernie says, matter-of-fact, as if that will calm Serena’s panic.

But Serena’s voice rises. “You have a boat? Good, get on it and anchors away.”

“Serena?” Edward’s barks from above. “Is that you?”

“I don’t know where you all came from,” Serena tells Bernie, her feet moving her back and out of the goathouse, “but can you please go back there?”

She turns and bolts, tears streaming down her face.


	2. Chapter 2

Her hands trembling, Serena pours herself another cocktail. She jumps when Raf and Fletch materialise in the doorway of her room like the ghosts of summer present. She hasn’t had a moment of peace since the ghost of summer past decided to pop up.

“What’s happened?” Raf asks when he sees that his friend’s eyes are red.

Serena sinks down on the edge of her bed. She takes a long sip of her drink. “Elinor’s dad.”

“That Campbell guy?” Fletch says as he and Raf sit either side of Serena. Raf reaches for Serena’s glass – tries to save his friend from the evils of excessive daytime drinking – but Serena shoots him a deadly look daring him to steal it from her.

She takes another sip. “He’s here.”

“You invited him?” Raf says, shocked.

“Of course, I didn’t invite him. I was never one hundred percent sure he was her dad. There was more than one drunken mistake.” Serena downs the last of her drink. “A Robbie Metcalf.” She pushes the glass in Raf’s hand. She lies back on the bed, groans. “He’s here too.”

“No way,” Fletch says.

Serena puts her hand over her eyes. “It gets worse. Bernie’s also here.”

“ _The_ Bernie?” Raf gasps.

“Big macho army medic Bernie? Catalyst for your gay awakening Bernie?” Fletch takes Serena’s hand away from her eyes. “Best shag of your life Bernie?”

“Fletcher!” Serena squawks.

“Your words, not mine.” He smirks.

Serena regrets ever telling Fletch and Raf about Bernie at her fiftieth birthday party, or rather she regrets a bucket-load of shiraz telling them.

“Honestly the nerve of them. Turning up out of the blue two days before my daughter’s big day.” Serena holds out her arms and Raf and Fletch pull her up into a sitting position.

“Do they know about Elinor?” Raf asks.

“What are they?” Serena says. “Psychic? No, Elinor . . . happened after Bernie. And I was well shot of Edward and Robbie before I knew she was happening.”

“Oh Serena.” Raf puts a hand on her shoulder. “Keeping it to yourself all these years?”

“Well,” Serena says, going to stand. “That’s not the only thing –”

Fletch stretches out his arm in front of Serena's waisr, holds her back from making a beeline for the alcohol again. “You still haven’t come out to Elinor?”

“There never seemed the right moment,” Serena says.

“You should tell her,” Raf says,

“What? And drop the dad bombshell on her at the same time? No, no.” Serena pushes away Fletch’s arm and stands up. “Elinor is never finding out that they’re here.”

“Where are her dads?” Fletch asks.

“Nice try.” Serena knows if she tells Raf and Fletch they will head straight towards the goathouse. What she needs is a plan of action. “Okay,” she says, pacing the floor in trousers, shirt and boots, her overalls and utility belt discarded on a chair next to her. She brushes a hand through her short silver hair. She knows how to keep Robbie and Edward off her back. “You need to help make me look more butch.”

Raf looks at Fletch. Fletch looks at Raf. Each dare the other to say something through a battle of pained glances.

“Um, Serena,” Fletch says. “I don’t think that’s possible.”

“Why not?” She places her hands on her hips. “It’s like insect repellent against men.”

“And a honeytrap for lesbian army medics,” Raf blurts out.

Fletch elbows him in the ribs, but it’s too late. Serena’s face falls as she realises her plan won’t keep all three old flames at bay.

Serena presses a hand to her forehead. “God, this is such a mess. Can’t you just spread a rumour that I’ve joined a convent, or something?”

“Believable lies, please Serena,” Raf says.

Fletch crosses his arms. “And you can’t hide forever.”

Serena smiles.  “That’s exactly what I’ll do. Just think, what’s the combined amount of years we all hid in the closet? We’re pros at this.”

-

When Elinor returns to the goathouse to check that Robbie, Edward and Bernie are still there, her face drops. The goathouse is completely empty. She races to the dock. A boat is sailing away from the island.

“Wait.” She jumps up, outstretching her arm. “Wait!”

She yanks her summer dress over her head and kicks off her shoes, so she’s left in her swimsuit. She dives into the water and swims after the boat.

“Elinor?” Bernie calls.

“Don’t leave.” Elinor says breathlessly, treading water. “You can’t leave.”

“I was going to sail around the island. Want to come with me?”

Bernie helps pull Elinor up onto the boat. Elinor stumbles into her arms. “Shit, sorry,” she realises Bernie’s shirt is now wet, but Bernie doesn’t seem to mind.

Bernie smiles. “You’re an excellent diver.”

“Mum taught me. When I was little.”

“I taught your mum. When . . . well, a long time ago.”

“Why were you in Greece? Mum fled here to escape Gran. They’d fallen out. She never said why, but I think it was because of the L-word.”

Bernie’s eyebrows arch. “The L-word?”

“Lyon. Mum wanted to work there after Harvard, but gran thought mum should stay in England and settle down.”

“I see.” Bernie remembers Serena telling her about her fight with Adrienne. How Adrienne had all these expectations for her, ones she could never match no matter how hard she tried. How, in Adrienne's eyes, she could never do anything right. Never escape her scathing criticism. Adrienne would pick Serena apart bit by bit. She was too loud, too stubborn, too much to handle. She was rapidly veering off the right path. Aged 31, childless and husbandless, Serena was turning into a spinster. And depression certainly hadn't fitted into Adrienne's vision of her daughter's future. 

“Apparently,” Serena told Bernie one night, resting her head on Bernie’s chest, “it’s all in my head _._ ” Her breath was warm on Bernie’s skin and her long brown hair soft against Bernie’s toying fingers. “I told her, Mummy dearest, that’s rather the entire point. ‘Oh no, Rena,’ she said, ‘pills won’t fill the emptiness. You need to get yourself a _man_.’” Bernie remembers how Serena had drawled the word, stretched out the three letters until they sounded ridiculous. “‘And as for a baby,’ Mother said, ‘the horse may not have bolted yet, but it’s eyeing up the stable door.’”

Bernie thinks how soon after that night Serena was indeed pregnant. She wonders if she told her mum, if she ever made up with her. She’s about to ask Elinor if her Gran lives on the island with them – Bernie doesn’t think she does – but she remembers that Elinor’s still waiting for an answer to her question.

_Why were you in Kalokairi?_

“I was having a tough time in England. I wanted to run away too, like your mum,” Bernie explains. “So, I threw a dart at a map and it landed on Greece.”

“Really?” Elinor says.

“And I haven’t really stopped running since.” Bernie taps the mast of her boat. “I caught the travelling bug. Ukraine, Sudan, Kenya . . . and that was just the first two years.”

“What did you do?”

“Mix of things. Mostly humanitarian medicine.”

“Wow. And you never returned to England?”

“I did, briefly. I’m not very good at staying in one place.”

“What about for a couple of hours?”

“Sorry?” Bernie’s brow creases in confusion.

Elinor pulls at her necklace – reminding Bernie of her mother’s nervous habit – but her voice is full of excitement. “Can I draw you?”

-

“Ah, Eddie,” Raf thumps Edward on the back when he finds him sat at the local bar. “Just the man I was looking for.”

Edward knocks back the last of his beer and turns to Raf. “It’s Edward.” His lip curls in distaste at the lurid yellow and pink of Raf's shirt. Real men don’t wear pink.

Raf puts on his most high-pitched, campest voice. “Well, Edward, Ed-ster, I have a message for you.” He pauses, as one would for dramatic tension or when talking to a child. “ _From Serena_.”

Edward’s eyes light up.

A moth to a flame, Raf thinks. Bless.

-

“Mum thinks I’m rushing into things,” Elinor says to Bernie, applying the last finishing touches to her drawing. “Because I’m 20 and that means I’m still a child who doesn’t know what she wants.”

“She’s worried about you,” Bernie replies, still looking at the horizon like Elinor instructed her. “Her baby’s finally flying the nest.”

“Except that’s the problem. I’m not going anywhere. I want to help mum with the hotel. She built it up from basically nothing, but hardly anyone knows this place exists. I want to make a website. Draw in the customers the hotel deserves.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you.”

“Mum thinks it’s stupid. According to her, I should be off learning the ways of the world. But not everyone can simply fly off to another country, new home, new friends, new school. Not everyone can graduate from Harvard.” Elinor sets down her pencil. “Mum might have loved it, but . . .” Elinor sighs, disappointed with herself. “I’m not her.”

“Your Mum didn’t always know what she wanted either.” Bernie sneaks a look at Elinor, sees that the drawing’s done. She drops her shoulders, turns around fully to face her. “She didn’t have it all planned out, you know. No one does.”

“Are you sure it was my Mum you meet twenty years ago?”

“I mean she likes other people to think she always know what she's doing.”

Elinor grins. “Okay, definitely my mum. What do you think? Am I too young to say ‘I do’ without it all ending in disaster?”

“I’m – I – marriage isn’t really my best subject.”

“You’re divorced?” Elinor’s question sounds hopeful, but Bernie can’t work out why.

“Didn’t get farther than the church.”

Elinor’s mouth drops open. “They jilted you at the altar! But you’re bea –”

“I jilted him.”

“Because of mum?”

Bernie goes quiet for a moment, before patting her hands on her thighs and standing up. “My picture. Can I see it?”

She strides up to Elinor and Elinor accepts that, for now, she won’t know if her mum was the reason why Bernie stopped her marriage. At only a fortnight’s notice, three people have dropped their normal lives and rushed across the globe at the chance to see her mum again – even two decades on. Elinor doesn’t doubt Bernie would have done exactly the same all those years ago, when the flame of love was at its brightest.

“This is good.” Bernie’s voice breaks through Elinor’s thoughts. “Really, really good.” She holds up the drawing. “Art-school good.”

“You think?”

“Have you ever thought of making money from this? A career?”

“I’ve always just sketched as a hobby. Mum doesn’t even know about it.”

“You should show her your work.”

“Okay.” Elinor reaches for Bernie’s portrait.

Bernie jumps back. “Wait. You promised me this one.”

“You’re right. When she sees you after all this time, it should be in the flesh.”

“Yeah, Elinor about that – er – our reunion?” Bernie stumbles over her words. How does she tell Elinor that she’s already reunited with Serena? And that Serena looked as if she wished herself dead and that she never wants to see Bernie ever again?

It’s impossible to put into words. Elinor’s voice is so earnest. “You’re still coming to my wedding, aren’t you?”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Even as she says it, Bernie’s brain is whirling as loud as a police siren.

“Cool. See you then.” Elinor dives off the boat, perfectly, and Bernie can’t help but think fondly of how Serena, like her daughter, was always a bit of a show off.

-

“Oh, I never want to see Bernie again, but I’m standing on the pier watching out for her boat,” Fletch teases Serena, mimicking a posh – almost queen-like – tone. 

“I do _not_ sound like that.” Serena side eyes him. “And I’m not watching out for her boat. I’m soaking up the last of the sun.”

“Right.”

“Right,” Serena says firmly, putting an end to the debate. “Where is Raf?”

“He’s sorting Edward out.”

“Sorting?”

“Yeah, I sorted Robbie out and now he’s . . . yeah, the less you know the better.”

“Well, the bunting won’t hang itself.” Serena turns around to head back into the island. She needs to put up the decorations for Elinor’s hen night tomorrow. She spots a blonde headed woman in the distance. It can’t be, can it? Serena squints. She edges to her right, angling for a better look. Bernie? Eyes fixed ahead of her, Serena takes another step. And then another. And another - off the pier. She splashes into the water.

As soon as she surfaces, spluttering, Fletch bursts into laughter. “Fancied a dip, did you? Had a hot flush and needed cooling off?”

“Very droll,” Serena shouts, treading water. She cranes her neck to see if she can spot the head of blonde hair again. No luck.

-

After spying Serena on the pier, Bernie has, quite literally run for the hills. Or run up them. Faster than she’s run in her life. She stops at a deserted house, panting. She should have stayed in her boat, she thinks. There’s a reason she docked it away from the pier. She should have stayed put until Elinor’s wedding, but she’d always been an explorer and the beauty of the Greek Island had tempted her from that plan.

Bernie lifts the binoculars hanging around her neck to her eyes.

Serena is standing on the pier, her clothes soaking wet. Bernie watches her pull her shirt over her head, the vest underneath creeping up to reveal a flash of her abdomen, before she tugs it down. The vest is white and does nothing to hide the outline of her breasts. Bernie imagines drops of water traveling down Serena’s tanned arms, before getting distracted by the way the wet fabric of her trousers clings to her thighs.

She watches Serena swat a man with her wet shirt. She watches her laugh. She watches her hug him, tight, long. Bernie drops the binoculars.

Oh, she thinks.

-

“Get off!” Fletch tries to back out of Serena’s hug. “You’re soaking.”

“I know,” she says, glee in her voice. “And for your cheek, Fletcher, you are going in that water.”

-

It is nearing 9’o’clock in the evening by the time Robbie arrives at the meeting place. ‘A short walk through some trees’, Fletch had called it. Yeah right. Sweat is dripping on his bow and he has had to pull lose his bowtie from his neck. There are scratches on his hands from a fight with a very prickly plant and his best shoes are coated with mud. Dear God, he thinks, Serena is a difficult woman.

He spots a table set for dinner for two, adorned with candlesticks and a bottle of wine. Yes, Serena is a difficult woman, but very much worth the trouble. He has no doubt Serena will more than reward him for his arduous trek. After all, there has to be a reason she chose to meet him in the middle of bloody nowhere, miles and miles away from her home. Privacy? Robbie grins.

He hears a rustle to his right. “Serena?”

“Get off! Get away from me.” It’s a man's voice. “This is my drink, not yours.”

Edward stumbles backwards into the clearing, waving away three wasps and clutching a can of beer protectively. He’s too preoccupied to notice Robbie, but he collides with the table. He’s overjoyed to find a bottle of wine on it.

“Here. Have it.” He tosses his beer can away and grabs the bottle of wine, unscrews it, sips. It’s water. His face scrunches up. “You’re kidding me.”

“What the hell,” Robbie growls, making Edward jump and turn around. “What the bloody hell are you doing here?”

-

The night air is quiet and still as Serena walks her dog along a path adjacent to the beach. She thought the solitude might afford her some clarity. Bernie’s appearance had . . . unsettled her. Had awoken long-forgotten feelings inside of her. It’s a good job she hadn’t run into her again, Serena tells herself, but she can’t help but think of how short their reunion was. Of the many years they’ve spent apart. Bernie’s hair is still blonde, but it’s shorter and she very likely dyes it now. If Serena threaded her fingers through the locks, would they still feel the same to touch? Still feel like home?

Good god Campbell, she reprimands herself, you’re getting sentimental in your old age. It’s been two decades since her and Bernie parted. Since Bernie _left_ her. Someone else’s hands might caress Bernie’s hair. Might caress –

Serena freezes. Her eyes have strayed to the left. To the sea.

A woman is taking off her clothes, stripping down to a bikini. And she looks an awful lot like Bernie. Serena’s rakes her eyes up never-ending legs. Remembers how strong Bernie’s thighs were around her waist, around her head. How soft the skin felt beneath her lips.

Heat pulses through Serena. She blames it on menopause.

“Time for a very cold shower,” she tells her dog. She tugs at her dog’s lead, ready to head back to her house. Her dog yaps in protest. Serena crouches down behind a bush and tries to shush her, but the dog only barks more. The dog jumps up, and the lead slips out of Serena’s hand. The dog lunges towards the beach.

“Sappho,” Serena shouts, still crouching, before remembering that Bernie is only footsteps away. “Sappho,” she repeats, in a hushed but panicked tone.

Bernie’s about to enter the sea when she hears the calls, a women’s voice flowing through the night.

“Sappho. Sappho. Sappho.”


	3. Chapter 3

Bernie looks around the bay, but she can’t see any one. A ball of white fluff bounds towards her, its tail wagging madly.

“Hello there,” Bernie leans down to stroke the puppy. “Who are you?” She takes the labradoodle’s tag. There’s a name and phone number. “So, _you’re_ Sappho.” Her owner must have been calling for her. Bernie takes Sappho’s lead and stands up. Her eyes scan the bay. “Is anyone there?” 

Sat behind the bush – thank God no one trims it – Serena stays stuck to the spot. Her skin is unbearably hot. She really is having a hot flush. Fabulous. Serena takes a couple of long breathes. _Ah_ , and there’s the feeling of nausea. Surely, from a medical viewpoint, walking up to a semi-naked Bernie in Serena’s state is unadvisable?

She stays hidden until she’s sure Bernie’s left the beach.

-

“Now I left my phone on Virginia,” Bernie tells Sappho as they walk back to her boat, “but I’ll ring for your owner as soon as we reach her.”

The owner’s number goes to voicemail. Bernie tells the owner that she’ll call again in the morning.

-

Serena sleeps fitfully and wakes with guilt twisting her stomach in knots. She ignored Bernie’s voicemail last night, but she can’t ignore her forever. She tries her hardest, though. She throws herself into the preparations for tonight’s party. She’s setting the last table when her phone buzzes in her pocket. She bites her lip.  _Come on, Campbell,_ she tells herself. She brings the phone to her ear.

“Hi, I’ve found your dog. Sappho? My name’s Bernie? Hello?”

“Bernie,” Serena takes a deep breath, “it’s me.”

Bernie goes silent. Serena’s heart beats wildly. “When – when would it be good for me to pick her up? Where are you staying?”

“Er – I’m staying on my boat.”

Serena cringes. She remembers ordering Bernie to get back on her boat.

“Mum!” Elinor calls from somewhere in the villa. “Didn’t we have some rainbow fairy lights? I can’t find them.”

“Will late afternoon be alright?” Serena asks Bernie. “It’s just –”

“Yeah, course, no problem.” Bernie’s words come out in a rush. She sounds breathless.

“Where are you docked?”

“Erm, by a tree.”

“Which tree?”

“It’s old,” Bernie replies. “Big. Lots of birds.”

The line goes dead. Serena facepalms.

-

Serena’s hands shake as she tries to knot her tie, the last touch to her outfit for Elinor’s hen night. She gives up. She tugs it from her neck and tosses it on her bed. Huffs.

Elinor appears in Serena’s bedroom doorway. “You’ve been like this all day.”

“Like what all day?” Serena asks.

Elinor crosses her arms. “Tetchy.”

“You haven’t exactly been,” Serena makes air quotes with her fingers, “‘chilled out’ yourself today.”

Elinor can’t argue with her mother. She still hasn’t found out where Edward or Robbie have got to, and with each passing hour she becomes more convinced that she’s made a terrible mistake. How on earth will her mum react? She thought finding out who her dad was would make her wedding day perfect, but it's all such a mess. Tears start to well in her eyes.

“Oh darling,” Serena pulls Elinor into a hug.

“I don’t know what to do, Mum.” Elinor’s voice trembles.

Serena draws back and cups Elinor’s face with her hands. “You don’t have to do anything. It’s not too late. We can still call off the wedding. Everybody will understand.”

Elinor jerks away from Serena. “Call . . . call off the wedding?”

“Yes,” Serena replies.

“No.”

“No?”

“No, no, no.” Elinor presses a hand to her forehead. “You really have no idea, do you? God, Mum.” She throws her hands up in the air. “You never had a wedding. You never found the one. And all this . . . what is this? Regret? Jealously?”

“What?” Serena says in a stung voice. “Where’s all this coming from?”

“I’m . . . I’m not like you mum. I don’t have every last single thing planned out. I don’t know if everything will fall apart in a year’s time and you’ll be telling me ‘I told you so’, but isn’t it enough to just want something, to want to make it work? I’m not expecting a fairy-tale.”

Elinor remembers how her mother was never one to tell her tales of princesses saved by the prince when she was a kid. Instead, Elinor was raised on the life stories of Audre Lorde and Frida Kahlo and Eleanor Roosevelt and countless other historical women she’s starting to wonder if her mum just felt admiration for. Strong, brave heroines.

Elinor’s voice drops to nearly a whisper. “I don’t want to be so scared of the unknown that I never actually get the chance to see what it holds.”

For a moment, Serena is speechless. When did her daughter get so wise? And so lippy?

“I’ve lost Sappho,” Serena says. “She ran off last night.”

Alarm flashes in Elinor’s eyes. “Has someone found her?”

“Yes, but they live . . . miles away.”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

“It’s your hen night.”

“A glorified drinking contest. And, besides, uncle Raf warned me never to let you get too merry. _Serena ballerina_.”

“I was young,” Serena defends her drunken pole-dancing and whatever other . . . colourful stories her darling friends Raf and Fletch had relayed to her daughter. “I had fun.”

“Oh, I know.”

“I suppose you’ll have all your friends there and you won’t want an old fart like me embarrassing you.”

“Of course, I want you at my hen night, but you’ve been worrying all day over Sappho. I know she means a lot to you. Go and bring her home.”

“Alright. Have fun.” She kisses Elinor on the cheek. “Behave.”

-

Surely, Serena thinks, she’s journeyed for over an hour now? Oh well, better late than never, and she did set out late. After Elinor left her bedroom, Serena changed her waistcoat three times and her tie twice even though she’d picked out her outfit weeks ago. 

“By a tree, she says,” Serena talks to herself when she spots Bernie’s boat. “Luckily, I know this island inside out. And where all the disused piers are.”

Serena walks to the pier, calling out Bernie’s name. No answer. She steps onto Bernie's boat. Sappho dashes towards her. She jumps up on her hind legs and paws at Serena’s knees.

“Hello, sweetheart.” Serena brushes her fingers through Sappho’s silky hair. Sappho turns and leads Serena below deck. The cabin appears empty – until Sappho darts to Bernie, who’s lying on the floor underneath the table.

“Bernie?” Serena bends down to look at her.

“My . . . err . . . back went.”

“What were you doing _before_ your back went?”

A redness colours Bernie’s face. She might have freaked out when she heard Serena’s voice. She might have scrambled for a place to hide.

“Don’t tell me,” Serena says. “The closet was too small.”

“Guilty,” Bernie grunts, dragging herself out from underneath the table. Pain shoots through her back. “As charged.”

Serena sees Bernie’s wince. “Let me take a look.”

“I – I couldn’t –”

“I insist.”

“That . . . that would be nice.” Bernie lowers herself tentatively to sit in a chair. At the first touch of Serena’s hands, Bernie’s heartrate quickens. Serena is very, very good at this. As Serena kneads out the knots in Bernie's back a moan slips from Bernie’s lips and she manages to turn the ‘oh’ into a ‘so’. “So . . . you named your dog Sappho?”

“Says the woman who named her boat Virginia Wolfe?” Serena keeps her tone as light and level as possible. Touching Bernie, after all these years, pressing her fingertips into Bernie’s shoulder blades, stirs up a whirlwind of feelings inside Serena. She closes her eyes to try to calm herself, but it only summons an image of Bernie’s naked back. After sex, Bernie would go and stand outside on the balcony and smoke a cigarette. Serena remembers how moonlight would bath her skin. Serena would pad up behind Bernie and expect her skin to feel as cold as porcelain beneath her lips, but she would find it soft and yielding. Serena remembers pressing herself up against Bernie’s back, wrapping her arms around her waist. A mirror of earlier that day when Bernie sped through the Greek streets on her motorbike and Serena would cling to her.

“Do you still ride?” Serena asks Bernie, can’t help herself.

“Now and then,” Bernie replies. “Not as much as I’d like. I spend most of my time on here.”

“The freedom of the open sea seduced you?”

“Something like that.”

“You were always . . .” Serena’s hands still. “Restless.”

“Serena . . .” Bernie shifts in her seat and Serena drops her hands. “That night, the last day of September I –”

“I should –” Serena steps back. “Thank you for looking after Sappho.” She leans down to pick up Sappho. Sappho resists, but soon Sappho is in Serena’s arms and she is heading for the deck. “Thank you for looking after her. We’ll get out of your hair, now.”

Bernie follows her. “Wait. Please. Don’t go. Not yet.”

There are the same words Serena once told Bernie. Serena halts, turns back around. She looks so beautiful stood on the deck of the boat, Bernie thinks, her silver hair glinting in the sun. She looks so unsure. She looks like she did that September. She looks like she did in the moment after Bernie told her she had something to tell her, but before the shock, before the tears.

_“I have to go back to England.”_

_“What?”_

But instead of avoiding Serena’s eyes, instead of trying to swallow a hard lump in her throat, this time Bernie smiles, shyly. “I don’t have much hair to get into these days.”

Sappho wriggles in Serena’s arms. Serena lets her jump back onto the deck. “You used to nearly be able to sit on it. What happened?”

“Impulse. Lopped it all off one day. Regretted it as soon as I’d done it.” Bernie laughs. “You should have seen the hairdresser’s face when I went to get it neatened.”

“Shock?”

“Horror. What about you?”

“Why did I cut mine?”

“Yeah. You always joked that one day you’d get a boy’s cut to spite your mum.”

“It just seemed one less thing to worry about when I was preg–” Serena catches herself. “When I was setting up a business.”

“Did you and Adrienne ever . . .”

“Make up?”

Bernie nods.

“I tried, a few years ago, to get back in contact. . . but . . .” Serena’s voice cracks.  “It was too late.”

“Oh, Serena, I’m so sorry.”

“We were both too proud,” Serena continues. “I was too proud. I left it too long. And . . .” Serena takes a breath. Tears prick her eyes. “I lost her.”

Heartbroken over Bernie, feeling foolish from two ill-advised trysts with mediocre men and unwell with morning sickness, Serena had called her Mum. She hoped that there was a chance she could return to the refuge of home. She told Adrienne she was pregnant, unmarried and without intention to marry, to even reconnect with the father.

Adrienne spat at her down the phone. “You silly slut. How will you cope on your own?”

“You did,” Serena replied, “perfectly well, after dad died. Pot. Kettle. Mother.”

“But for a child not to have a father figure, at all. It’s not right _._ ”

“Really?” Serena rolled her eyes. “Because I fail to see what use a penis is, aside from the obvious. And it’s already done.”

Adrienne gasped. “Serena McKinnie, there is no need for such vulgarity. And besides,” Adrienne lowered her voice to a whisper, “what about your . . . problems?”

“According to you, I have several so you’ll have to be more –”

“The matter of you being –”

Serena’s voice turned defensive. “Of my being unhinged? Crazed? Mad as a hatter?”

“Now, you’re being dramatic. I’m only thinking of your wellbeing. Of your child’s wellbeing . . . and safety.”

“I would never hurt my child!”

Their phone call lasted another ten minutes. They never talked again. Adrienne never got to meet Elinor. In the months following Elinor’s birth, Serena often looked at her daughter, her perfect, beautiful daughter, and thought of writing to Adrienne, sending her a picture. Elinor’s smile could soften anyone’s heart. It had softened Serena’s, melted down her damaged heart and reshaped it into something stronger. Elinor was her joy. And Serena poured all her love into making a home for them, into building them up the hotel.

Serena grew proud of her growing daughter, of her growing business. She wondered if Adrienne would be proud too, if she knew of Serena’s life now. The good kind of pride. The one that didn’t tear families apart. The one that brought them together.

On Elinor’s eighteenth birthday, Serena dialled her mother’s number. No answer. She persisted. A day later she found out Adrienne was dead.

Serena uses her palms to wipe tears from her face. The bastards won’t stop flowing. And then Bernie's hand is on her shoulder and Serena loses all hope of not dissolving into a blubbering mess. She feels Bernie’s fingers rub soothing shapes into her skin. _Snap out of it_ , Serena tells herself. But she cries for an embarrassingly long time, until the tears decide themselves to dry up. 

“Drink?” Bernie asks softly. “I have wine.”

Serena laughs self-deprecatingly. "What would we toast?" She missed out on 20 years of contact with Adrienne. In all likelihood, they would have been 20 years of more criticism, of always falling short of her mother's expectations, but Serena still can't help but feel regret. Something might have changed between them, it might have gotten better, but now she'll never know. "To missing chances out of fear and stubbornness?"

“Or," Bernie suggests, "we could toast to new ones? New chances?”

Serena realises that Bernie hasn’t stepped away. Her hand is still on her shoulder, her face is still close to hers and her lips . . . Serena’s eyes flicker down. How easy would it be to turn into Bernie’s embrace? To forget how it ended. To forget the years of loneliness. Of yearning. The endless yearning. She doesn’t think it’ll ever stop thrumming through her blood.

Serena remembers Elinor's words from this morning.  _I don’t want to be so scared of the unknown that I never actually get the chance to see what it holds._

Serena leans forward. Her lips meet Bernie’s. The yearning surges through her.


	4. Chapter 4

Serena wakes up in the middle of the night and Bernie is gone from the bed. The bedsheets are a twisted mess and Serena throws them off her easily. She journeys up to the deck and finds Bernie stood at the prow of her boat, moonlight draping her bare skin. One of her hands is on the railings, the other lifts a cigarette to her lips. Serena eyes trace the path her lips kissed less than an hour ago, from the top of Bernie’s spine to the hollow of her back.

Serena admires Bernie and sips from the glass in her hand. It’s the last of the wine she and Bernie and her shared. They didn’t finish the bottle before another thirst took over Serena.

“What are you waiting for?” Bernie says to Serena, without turning around. “Christmas?”

Serena sets her wine down on the side and pads up to Bernie. She tuts at Bernie’s teasing. She puts her lips to Bernie’s shoulder blade. Slips her arms around her waist. Taps her fingers against Bernie’s soft stomach. Draws a hand upwards and a finger across the underside of Bernie’s breast. Her other hand moves downwards to meet coarse curls. But not any further.

Serena hears Bernie’s breath hitch. Serena drops her hands and steps back. Bernie turns around to her and Serena smiles innocently, drops her eyes to Bernie’s cigarette. “What are you waiting for? Christmas?”

Bernie passes her the cigarette. Serena nicks Bernie’s spot on the boat too, somehow. She leans back against the railings, stretches out without a hint of self-consciousness and takes a long drag of the cigarette. Looks up to the stars. She’s naked, apart from her waistcoat.

“So not only are you butch, but you also smoke now.” Bernie says, eyes sparkling.

“I haven’t smoked in decades.” Serena shrugs her shoulders. “You always were a bad influence on me.”

Bernie’s eyebrows arch. “I was?” She laughs. She counts on her fingers. “Skinny-dipping. Pole-dancing. Drinking till dawn. An inclination for sex anywhere but the actual bed.”

Serena opens her mouth to protest.

“I haven’t finished.” Bernie taps her little finger. “Breaking into a bar. Your idea again.”

“I knew the owner,” Serena says. “Sort of.”

Bernie starts on the other hand. “Sex outside. Against a tree. On –”

“Okay,” Serena drawls. “So, I was bit _wild_. But you liked it.”

“I liked everything. Everything that we did. Everything about you.” Bernie takes one of Serena’s hands in hers, runs her thumb against the skin of Serena’s inner wrist.

“I . . . liked you too.” Serena tries to the swallow the lump in her throat. She loved Bernie. She told her once, but it didn’t stop Bernie from leaving. “A lot.”

 _But you left_ , she wants to remind Bernie. _I loved you, but you left._

Serena’s hand slips out of Bernie’s. She juts out her chin. Her voice turns nonchalant. “As far as summer flings go, it was good.”

Serena’s words hurt Bernie, belittling what they had to a mere _fling_ when they more know it was so much more than _._ But if Serena can put on an act, so can Bernie. A confidence to act on her desires. She gets to her knees. Leaves a kiss on Serena’s outer thigh.

“It was _more_ than just good.” She punctuates the words with more kisses, each one closer to Serena’s centre. When she looks up, Serena’s pupils are wide.

“Two seconds.” Bernie stands back up and takes the cigarette from Serena. “I’m not letting you set my boat on fire.” She kisses Serena’s cheek, brief and tender. "I’ll be back.”

Bernie disappears in search of an astray. She returns within moments, but finds Serena grew impatient with waiting. Her hand is between her thighs. 

“Christmas came,” Serena tells her, voice low.

Bernie rolls her eyes. She takes Serena’s hand away, puts it on the railings behind her – she’s going to need something to grip on to. Slowly, Bernie slides Serena’s waistcoat from her arms. A frivolity, Serena thinks, something to prolong her waiting. A necessity, Bernie thinks, to take in the glorious sight of a completely naked Serena McKinnie.

Bernie resumes her position and Serena moans underneath the stars. 

-

Serena wakes up when Bernie is still sleeping. A flash of white lights up the room. Curious, Serena sits up. Bernie’s left her phone on the table. The light is a notification of a text. From a woman called Rhiannon.

 _So,_ it reads, _when are you getting your kit off for me again?_ It finishes with a winking emoji.

Serena sits frozen for a moment, before pinching the bridge of her nose. She squeezes her eyes shut so tears can’t slip down her face. She will not cry again over Berenice Wolfe. Serena looks at Bernie beside her. A lover who left her for twenty years after a summer fling. Who she jumped back into bed with after less than 48 hours of seeing her again.

What the fuck is she doing? Serena questions herself.

She and Bernie have separate lives now. They hardly know anything about each other anymore. Even their bodies last night were testament to the time they have spent apart. Serena couldn't help the shock that overtook her when she saw the scar that bisected Bernie's chest, old and white. She tried to not to show her shock, least it be so easily misconstrued as something else, disgust or fear, but a hundred questions formed on her lips. Bernie didn't tell her anything, and that was okay last night. Serena didn't expect answers. She didn't seem to want Serena to pay any attention to it, so Serena didn't and that was okay too. She has her own scars. Ones Bernie knows about, and ones Bernie doesn't. Her body has changed too. Her skin bares the marks of years spent in the Greek sun. There's a scar on her hand from where her hand slipped whilst trying to fix her car herself, back in the day when she was pretty much approaching everything DIY with a 'make do and mend and don't kill yourself' attitude. Serena was almost glad last night that she has no caesarean scar, nothing to bear proof of Elinor. For some reason, she wasn't ready to tell Bernie of her. Just like Bernie wasn't ready to tell her of how she got her chest scar.

There's so much they've lived through without each other. Serena wonders if Rhiannon knows the story behind Bernie's scar. 

Bernie hasn’t mentioned another woman, hasn’t mentioned a Rhiannon, but Serena’s not stupid enough to think she remained the only female love affair in Bernie’s life. Bernie cheated on Marcus, her fiancé, with Serena. It had seemed different then – Marcus was miles away and Serena could tell how unhappy Bernie was with him, how unhappy she’d be with any man – but now Serena’s can’t get past the idea that she’s become the other woman, come between Bernie and this Rhiannon. Serena wonders how long they have been together. The fire’s still certainly burning in their relationship. Serena’s sure if she opened Bernie’s phone that she would find an extensive conversation between Bernie and Rhiannon full of more suggestive emojis and innuendo.

Serena slips out of Bernie’s bed. She snatches up her shirt and trousers. She flees.

-

Bernie wakes up late, later than she has in months. She usually wakes at the crack of dawn. She never wakes up feeling settled. An anxiousness always runs through her veins, to travel, to work, to keep busy at all costs. She’s feels as if she’s constantly in search of something. As if something’s missing. There’s a part of her that’s empty, but she doesn’t know how to fill it.

Bernie wakes up in Kalokairi finally feeling complete. She smiles as she remembers last night, remembers Serena atop of her, around her, inside of her. She remembers touching her in turn, feeling her tremble, hearing her cry out Bernie’s name. They fell into the same rhythm they shared twenty years ago. Bernie’s fingers delicate, but determined and her tongue gentle, but firm, playing Serena like an instrument and coaxing out a love song. Moan after moan after moan. Until the words Bernie and God melt into one, melt away into sighs, sobs, screams.

Bernie opens her eyes. Serena is gone from the bed. Bernie’s stomach plummets and she knows instantly that she won’t find Serena on deck. Bernie grabs her phone to ring Serena, not knowing what to say but knowing that she must say something, but a new text stops Bernie in her tracks. It’s from Rhiannon. Sent earlier this morning. It’s friendly, flirty, particularly to another’s eyes.

Serena’s eyes.

Bernie springs out of bed. She climbs the stairs to the deck. It’s only when she picks up Serena’s black waistcoat from where it lies on the floor that she realises she’s completely nude. She climbs back down the stairs. She has precisely two items of clothing hung up in her wardrobe, a tailored suit jacket she hasn’t worn in over a decade and a shirt that’s even older. The shirt is Serena’s. When Bernie returned to Greece, expecting to find Serena, the only thing she found in the flat was the shirt. It was underneath the bed, crumpled and forgotten. Bernie had unbuttoned it herself from Serena’s body only a week before. Bernie took it with her. Kept it all these years. 

Bernie lies the jacket and the shirt on her bed. She takes the shirt off the coat hanger and replaces it with Serena’s waistcoat. But Bernie doesn’t plan on keeping it for more than 20 hours. Bernie rifles through the haphazardly stacked pile of clothes that makes up the rest of her wardrobe. Shorts, skinny jeans, cargo trousers, shorts, skinny jeans, more skinny jeans. Bernie holds up a pair of black skinny jeans for inspection.

They’ll have to do, right?

Bernie dresses lightening fast. Serena is the one that got away, but Bernie’s not letting her go again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ironically, for such a happy story, it's making me miserable, as is everything I write or read these days, but four chapters in one week! Silver linings?


	5. Chapter 5

Face the colour of beetroot and drenched in sweat, Robbie lumbers his way through the cellars and to the top level of the goathouse. Everyone is at the wedding and the villa is completely silent, except for . . . are those snores? In the corner of the room a pile of blankets moves up and down. Robbie yanks a blanket away to reveal Edward’s sun-burnt face. He’s deep in a booze-fuelled stupor. How the hell did that sozzled idiot make it back to the villa before he did?

Robbie drops the blanket. Never mind him. He must find Serena and woo her back. But not like this. He needs a shower and a change of clothes. Hang on. Where are his clothes. He can’t see his suitcase anywhere. He pushes open a shutter in frustration. Sunlight floods the room, blinds him momentarily. And then he sees them. His best clothes. His jacket, his tie, his shirt. They dangle from the branches of a tree.

Robbie whines. Fuck this. Fuck this island. He’s heading straight to the pier. And he’s catching the first boat, and if there isn’t one in the next hour, he’ll bloody well steal one.

-

By the time she reaches the wedding venue, Serena is extremely glad she chose to forgo a tie. Already she is questioning the suitability of her grey fitted waistcoat – she’d left her looser one on Bernie’s boat. The sun is scorching. She picked the white suit trousers and white jacket to keep her cool, but already she feels sweat bead on her skin. Of course, that might also have something to do with Serena’s nerves and the fact her daughter’s getting married. Today.

When Serena sees Elinor waiting for her, in her dress and veil, Serena’s heart swells with love.

“Mum, there you are!”

“Sorry, I –”

Elinor clutches Serena’s hand. “Walk me down the aisle?”

Serena nods. She knows if she said something, she’d cry. She blinks back the tears as she walks Elinor to the altar. She lifts their joined hands and presses a kiss to Elinor’s hand, before letting it go and sitting down. “I love you," she says. 

‘I love you too’, Elinor mouths, before turning to the front and taking the hand of her fiancé, Sky.

“Welcome to Elinor and Sky.” The wedding registrar begins. “And to all your friends who are gathered here this afternoon. And welcome, especially to Serena, who represents your family. We are here together in this glorious –”

The yapping of a dog interrupts the register. Sappho sprints down the aisle. She jumps up on her hind legs and presses her muddy paws against Elinor’s pale pink wedding dress.

“Sappho, no!” A woman shouts, horrified, at the back of the building. Serena jumps to her feet.

“Bernie.” Elinor sounds delighted. She thought Bernie had changed her mind and left the island. “You made it.”

“Wait.” Serena’s looks back and forth between Bernie and her daughter. “You know each other?” Bernie and Elinor exchange an _uh-oh_ look. “Elinor McKinnie, Berenice Wolfe, what is going on?”

“I invited her,” Elinor explains. “I – I thought she was a man. One of the men in your past. One of the men that might be my dad.”

Serena’s hand flies to her mouth. “Oh my god. That’s why they’re all here.”

“Surprise?” Elinor says, quietly.

Serena is speechless. Elinor knows. Elinor knows about Bernie. Elinor knows that she loved her.

“Please, forgive me.” Elinor’s voice turns anxious at her mother’s silence. “I know I should have told you, but . . . but . . .” Elinor lifts up her hands. “Now you can and Bernie can get reacquainted again?”

Serena doesn’t know how to tell her daughter that her and Bernie already did that, at length, last night.

“Serena.” Bernie steps forward until she’s halfway down the aisle. “Say something?”

Bernie’s dressed in a grey suit jacket. She wears a thin tie, but oddly the top buttons of her shirt are undone. But it’s not her shirt. It’s Serena’s. From 20 years ago.

A wave of emotion crashes through Serena. “You can’t . . .” Serena stammers. “Bernie, you can’t do this. You can’t just waltz back in to my life. You left me. You left me, and you married someone else.”

“I went home to call off the engagement.”

“What?”

“I told Marcus I couldn’t marry him and I came right back here.”

“You . . . you . . .” Serena moves to the centre of the room, to stand opposite Bernie. “Then why the radio silence? You never called once."

“Because I thought you would be waiting for me. Here. Only when I arrived, our room was empty and they told me you were with someone else. So I went home and Marcus took me back. We rearranged the wedding. I convinced myself it was what I wanted until –”

“Until Rhiannon?”

Bernie shakes her head, remembering the day she'd agreed to marry Marcus again. It had felt like freely entering cage. So, she'd grabbed her helmet and speed away into the night. “Until the day I lost control of my bike and needed spinal surgery. Rhiannon’s my massage therapist. One in a long line, actually.” 

“Nothing more?”

“Nothing more. I’ve lost count of the countries I’ve been to, Serena, but I never forgot you. I thought about you often. I still do.”

Elinor squeals. “Mum. Kiss her.”

“I thought it was you and Sky’s day for declarations –” Serena’s twists the pendant of her necklace around with her fingers. “For declarations of -"

“Love.” Bernie finishes Serena’s sentence. 

"Mum," Elinor says, Bernie's honesty making her feel brave too. "I don't want to get married anymore. I mean I do, eventually. But I want to go travelling first." She turns to her fiancé. "You never wanted this anyway Sky. Let's go travelling. Go somewhere completely new."

Serena thinks she needs to sit down. After the amount of shock she's withstood these past couple of days, she's got emotional whiplash.

The wedding registrar looks confused too. "So, the entire thing's off?"

Serena turns to the wedding registrar. "I . . . er . . . I think so."

"No," Bernie interjects. "It doesn't have to be." She gets down on one knee and Serena's jaw goes slack. Oh my God. "What do you say McKinnie?"

"I say you're going very U-Haul lesbian on me, but you don't have a clue what that means, do you?"

Bernie shakes her head. "Is it good?"

"Depends on context."

"And this context?"

"Feels like some sort of dream. Bernie, you never settle down anywhere. For two decades you've -"

"Everywhere else didn't have you."

The room is so quiet you could hear a pin drop. 

"Yes." Serena holds out a hand to help Bernie up. "Yes."

She holds Bernie’s head in her hands. Presses her lips to her lips. Feels Bernie's arms slide around her back, pull her closer.

Yes. 

- 

They go ahead with the wedding reception. "Why let a good party go to waste?" Elinor says. "And, anyway, I found the rainbow lights."

The courtyard is bedecked with colourful lights, here, there, and everywhere (Elinor) and white bunting precisely hung up (Serena). There are fresh flowers on the table, perfuming the night air. And there's party music on. 

"Okay," Bernie bursts into a hopeful smile, pointing at her new wife. "I definitely know this one. Cher?"

"Cher?" Serena raises her eyebrows. "Cher!"

"Cyndi Lauper?"

Serena shakes her head, laughing. "Belinda Carlisle." 

"The next one," Bernie promises. "I'll get the next song."

"And if you don't, you _have_ to dance with me."

"Did we agree on that?" Bernie doesn't see why they can't stay, sit here, chairs pulled close together, watching the youngsters dance. Serena's arm is around Bernie's shoulder - the other periodically lifts a glass of shiraz to her lips. Bernie feels Serena's fingers rub gently at the skin just under the collar of Bernie's shirt. Serena's shirt. Their shirt. 

"Yep," Serena says, "about half an hour ago."

 _Heaven is a Place on Earth_ fades away, and a new song starts. 

"Abba!" Bernie victoriously announces, barely a moment later.

"Okay. Now song title." Serena says, and Bernie's joy quickly deflates.  

"Umm."

Serena takes her arm from around Bernie's shoulder and stands up. Expectantly, she holds out her hand. "Step to it."

Bernie's pretty sure she's one dance - or one more outside sex act - away from needing new knees, after last night. Not that she regrets it. She and Serena are sticking to beds for the foreseeable future. 

" _Waterloo_ ," Bernie answers. 

Serena sighs. She sits back down, and pretends to resist Bernie putting her arm around her. 

"I'll dance with you later. Alone." Bernie whispers to Serena - alighting something hot in the pit of her belly.

Serena finishes her wine. "It's later." And she stands up again and holds out her hand for Bernie and this time Bernie takes it. 

-

"That feels good. Dear God." Serena tilts her head back to allow Bernie's mouth further access to her skin. At the same time, her fingers tug at the buttons of Bernie's shirt in the darkness of her room. She's managed two. And those jeans look like they're spray-painted to her legs. _Wife_ , she would say, if Bernie's clever mouth wasn't melting all her words into moans,  _can you be naked quicker._ Serena's about to about to walk Bernie backwards to Serena's bed and push her down. She's about to straddle her, and focus all attention on ripping her clothes off her. 

Except Sappho barks, startling them so much that somehow Bernie's head hits Serena's and she moans in a very different way, before accidentally stepping on Bernie's foot. They fall on the bed in a heap of limbs, Serena atop Bernie. Sappho barks again, excitedly. She climbs on Serena's back. 

Serena bursts into laughter. Bernie too. Great honks of laughter that set Serena off more, but make Sappho spring off of Serena. 

"I think you frightened her," Serena says, rolls off Bernie and turns on her bedside lamp.

"She did it first," Bernie says, but she turns to Sappho and strokes her tenderly. "Did you think we were playing?" Sappho nestles into Bernie's touch, but as soon as Bernie withdraws her hand, Sappho jumps up on the bed again.

"Has she got her own bed?" Bernie asks.

"Yes, a horribly expensive one that she hardly uses."

"Sounds about right."

"Okay," Serena says. "For one night, we need to just get her out of this bed and back to the Isle of Lesbos."

"Sorry?" Bernie sounds puzzled. 

"That's what I named her bed."

Bernie kisses Serena. "Oh, I do love you."

"Likewise, Mrs Wolfe." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can we just appreciate this typo.
> 
> "I think you frightened her," Sappho says, rolls off Bernie and turns on her bedside lamp


End file.
